{"id":104,"date":"2020-12-20T23:26:08","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T04:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-edudley\/?p=104"},"modified":"2020-12-20T23:26:08","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T04:26:08","slug":"narratives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-edudley\/natural\/narratives\/","title":{"rendered":"Narratives"},"content":{"rendered":"

The<\/span> disaster surrounding Agent Orange cannot be considered fully without the context of the <\/span>Vietnam<\/span> War<\/span>: the war being a disaster <\/span>in its own right as well as<\/span> the foundational event that led to the disastrous use of toxic chemicals<\/span> by the United States <\/span>m<\/span>ilitary<\/span>. <\/span>Agent Orange is a powerful chemical herbicide that was used <\/span>alongside Agent White and Agent Blue, two other similar chemicals, to<\/span> destroy<\/span> foliage<\/span> in Vietnam during the Vietnam War<\/span> (Cusato<\/span> 2018<\/span>)<\/span>.<\/span> Agent Orange was first deployed in 1961, six years after the beginning of the war in Vietnam<\/span> (Palmer 2007)<\/span>. <\/span>The chemicals were sprayed for roughly a <\/span>ten<\/span>-year<\/span> per<\/span>iod with a vast majority of the spraying ending<\/span> by 197<\/span>2<\/span> (Cusato 2018). <\/span>The <\/span>w<\/span>ar<\/span>, which <\/span>lasted until 1975, <\/span>was fought between <\/span>the South Vietnamese with assistance fr<\/span>om the U.S<\/span>. and<\/span> the communist<\/span> aligned <\/span>Viet Kong of North Vietnam. <\/span>The U.S. <\/span>involvement<\/span> in the war has long been considered incredibly <\/span>controversial<\/span>, with some <\/span>believing<\/span> it to be the \u201cmost <\/span>controversial<\/span> of American Wars\u201d (Appy 2018). <\/span>The United States involvement in the war <\/span>is often<\/span> linked to the<\/span> then<\/span> ongoing Cold War struggle between the U.S. and the Soviet Unio<\/span>n<\/span> or <\/span>in an ideological sense <\/span>democracy <\/span>versus<\/span> communism. <\/span>The <\/span>controversial<\/span> aspects <\/span>stem<\/span> from whether the U.S should have been involved at all: was this a \u201cnoble struggle\u201d or a \u201ctragic interve<\/span>ntion\u201d<\/span> and was the<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>true\u00a0<\/span>intention<\/span> of the United States<\/span> to prevent the spread of communism<\/span> (Appy 2018)<\/span>?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

An <\/span>additionally <\/span>controversial<\/span> component<\/span> of this war<\/span> is the <\/span>actual use<\/span> of <\/span>the <\/span>Agent Orange<\/span> chemicals<\/span>. <\/span>The<\/span> disaster of Agent Orange does not refer to one instance or one event<\/span> as is the case for many disasters<\/span>, but rather begins in <\/span>1961 when the United States military implemented the use of the herbicide<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0through the present day where the country of Vietnam still faces <\/span>enormous<\/span> challenges due to the <\/span>wide sweeping<\/span> chemical exposure. T<\/span>he decade of spraying the chemicals causing massive destruction of<\/span> both<\/span> forest cover and crops<\/span> (<\/span>Palmer<\/span> 2007<\/span>)<\/span>. <\/span>It is estimated that around fifteen percent of land in Vietnam was directly sprayed with the chemicals, as well as over <\/span>4.8 million people, a<\/span>nd<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>parts of Loas and Cambodia along the Ho Chi Mihn Trail (<\/span>Palmer <\/span>2007). The chemicals were spread using aircrafts, <\/span>hand-sprayers, boats, and trucks (Palmer 2007). Over this decade, the U.S. sprayed roughly <\/span>eighty million liters of dioxin-based chemicals (Timeline). <\/span>The most infamous period of spraying was from 1962 to 1972 <\/span>which is referred to as<\/span> Operation Ranch Hand<\/span>, after which point the chemicals were mostly just used around military bases.<\/span> (Cusato 2018).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n